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Basis for starting a website!

First of all I do not know HTML, I have a logical understanding of computer languages and web-languages. I am a fairly competent IT person and I am a quick learner in my experience.

Ok, so I have been thinking of starting up a small website for myself and a few others and I need tips and info on what I need.

So on my website I want a forum, I have been thinking of vBulletin, is this hard to integrate?

Theme or template, I want a sleek and not win-95 style website, are there templates or themes or other thing for this?
Is there any programs that can write HTML for you? I am aiming for an original design and not some popular mainstream things.

I also want news, and image and file uploading system for and a user database.

So basically I need to know everything I need and I mean everything.

Should I start with registering my domain together with a web hotel? Or something more advanced. Also I would like some tips for a few beginners to relatively advanced tips or sites for starting a website.

I want to integrate Adsense together with it.

So what are your thoughts? Do you think, with a basis of what I have written here, that I am capable of making this? How advanced does my HTML or other skills need to be?

Thank you, and sorry for a messy text, I will be grateful for ALL tips!

Domain name doesn't cost a lot now and since you only had to pay for it every year, why not get one and save it for later?

Web host cost monthly or annually, depending on how you want to pay. I would suggest building up and test your website on your computer first before making it public online and having to buy a web hosting package.

A web page constructed using HTML has a basic and essential structure. The page always begins with the start tag of the html element and always terminates with the end tag of the html element as follows:

Example 1

<html>

...web page...

</html>

The html element basically tells your computer that this is an HTML document. All other element tags are 'nested' within the start and end html tags. The web page is then further subdivided into two main sections which are the 'head' and the 'body'.

The head section begins with the <head> start tag and terminates with the </head> end tag. Immediately following this comes the <body> start tag and just before the html end tag comes the </body> end tag.

There is only one set of <html>...</html> tags, one set of <head>...</head> tags and one set of <body>...</body> tags. This basic HTML web page structure can be illustrated by the following example:

Example 2

<html>

<head>

</head>

<body>

</body>

</html>

The head section or document head has little content and mostly contains HTML coded instructions on how to title, categorize and 'run' the web page. The body section or document body on the other hand contains almost all of the content that you will put on your web page and this content —usually text but can also be pictures and sounds— is formatted using more HTML code. All text that you place outside of any angle brackets will become 'visible text' and will be displayed by your web browser on your web page. By placing that text in between the start and end tags of certain HTML elements, you can instruct a web browser where and how to display that text.

I strongly disagree with using wordpress if you want to learn to make websites. its full of code and files that are confusing for people who know what they are doing. Its built in PHP and if you want to do anything outside of the GUI that it comes with you will be lost.

The best way to learn what you want to do is start with the top and work your way down.

1. Navbar. you tube how to make a navigation bar.
2. body
3. footer.

and so on. and then look up tutorials on everything small task you need to complete and when you are lost ask for help here.

it wont come together in one night. but stick to html and css for now and once you have a working site you can add JS and php to make it more dynamic.